" he began at length.

She turned to him impetuously. "Yes, yes; I'm happy. But I'm lonely,
too--lonelier than ever. I didn't take up much room in the world before;
but now--where is there a corner for me? Oh. since I've begun to confess
myself, why shouldn't I go on? Telling you this lifts a gravestone from
_me!_ You see, before this, Leila needed me. She was unhappy, and I knew
it, and though we hardly ever talked of it I felt that, in a way, the
thought that I'd been through the same thing, and down to the dregs of
it, helped her. And her needing me helped _me_. And when the news of
her marriage came my first thought was that now she'd need me more
than ever, that she'd have no one but me to turn to. Yes, under all my
distress there was a fierce joy in that. It was so new and wonderful
to feel again that there was one person who wouldn't be able to get on
without me! And now what you and Susy tell me seems to have taken my
child from me; and just at first that's all I can feel."

"Of course it's all you feel." He looked at her musingly. "Why didn't
Leila come to meet you?"

"That was really my fault. You see, I'd cabled that I was not sure of
being able to get off on the _Utopia_, and apparently my second cable
was delayed, and when she received it she'd already asked some people
over Sunday--one or two of her old friends, Susy says. I'm so glad they
should have wanted to go to her at once; but naturally I'd rather have
been alone with her."

"You still mean to go, then?"

"Oh, I must. Susy wanted to drag me off to Ridgefield with her over
Sunday, and Leila sent me word that of course I might go if I wanted
to, and that I was not to think of her; but I know how disappointed she
would be. Susy said she was afraid I might be upset at her having people
to stay, and that, if I minded, she wouldn't urge me to come. But if
_they_ don't mind, why should I? And of course, if they're willing to go
to Leila it must mean--"

"Of course. I'm glad you recognize that," Franklin Ide exclaimed
abruptly. He stood up and went over to her, taking her hand with one of
his quick gestures. "There's something I want to say to you," he began--
*****

The next morning, in the train, through all the other contending
thoughts in Mrs. Lidcote's mind there ran the warm undercurrent of what
Franklin Ide had wanted to say to her.

He had wanted, she knew, to say it once before, when, nearly eight
years earlier, the hazard of meeting at t